RBG

The first of two films reaching our screens centred on a remarkable octogenarian.

No dumbell: Ruth Bader Ginsburg

This
documentary biopic takes the form of a well-earned tribute to Justice
Ruth Bader Ginsburg who, in 1993, became only the second woman to be
appointed to the American Supreme Court. Still in that post but now
aged 85, Ginsburg has had a remarkable career and one that has enabled
her to make a prime contribution to the cause of attaining equality for
women and ensuring that their legal rights are not less than those of
men. Her long life (she was born in Brooklyn in March 1933) means that
she herself encountered inequality when seeking a legal post after
graduating from Columbia Law School, but in time she established
herself as a counsel drawn to cases in which the law as it then stood
discriminated unfairly. Not all of the discrimination she challenged
had a sexual basis yet it is not too much of an exaggeration to say
that she changed the world for American women.

RBG,
made by Betsy West and Julie Cohen, is an account of Ginsburg's life
and career that proceeds chronologically for the most part.
However, it does make early use of archive material showing her 1993
address when seeking confirmation of her appointment to the Supreme
Court and it also utilises fresh footage of her as she looks back on
her life. Many court cases are touched on, but her personal life is not
ignored including the vital contribution made by her husband, Martin,
whom she met when just seventeen and who would himself become a
professor of law. Despite Ruth's impact in court she was usually quiet,
soft-voiced and shy in person while Martin, who died of cancer in 2010,
was outgoing and socially inclined, thus making them a contrasted
couple who, as it turned out, complemented one another perfectly.

Later this year Ginsburg's story will be again be seen on our screens in On the Basis of Sex.
Because that work is a dramatisation using actors, it may well prove to
have the wider appeal, but it concentrates on her early career and in
any case, RBG is the more
compelling piece. The fact that both movies are appearing now is
doubtless linked to the fact that in Trump's America Ginsburg is
increasingly seen as an icon relevant to the young as well as to older
generations, a figure admired not just for her feminist views (Gloria
Steinem is just one of many contributors seen here) but as a
standard-bearer for liberal values. Towards the end West and Cohen do
allow their film to meander somewhat when to be tighter would be better
(as part of the personal portrait it is apt to incorporate references
to Ginsburg's love of opera but the timing is out when at the very
moment when the film should be winding up it indulges in footage of her
on stage in 2016 in a spoken role in Donizetti's La fille du régiment).
But no matter: this is a hugely sympathetic work, a close look at a
woman who deserves all the attention she is getting and, in passing, a
rather remarkable love story too.